The following description of background art may include insights, discoveries, understandings or disclosures, or associations together with disclosures not known to the relevant art prior to the present disclosed embodiments but provided by the disclosed embodiments. Some of such contributions may be specifically pointed out below, whereas other such contributions will be apparent from their context.
In modern communication and computer networks, data exchange between programs and computers is a vital element. Different programs, computers and processors exchange data without human intervention. This kind of communication is usually called machine-to-machine (M2M) communications.
An example of a network technology where M2M communication is widely applied is a low-power wireless network, such as an IEEE 802.15.4 based embedded and sensor network. More recently, as machine-to-machine devices have become IP enabled, systems have become more open by using IP as a networking protocol.
In typical M2M networks the devices or nodes connected to the networks, communicate with each other. Networks may have a connection to the Internet or other external network, and in such a case the nodes may communicate with devices outside the M2M network.
For the nodes to be able to communicate, a routing protocol is required. Routing protocols and techniques can divided very roughly into two groups: those utilizing a storing mode and those utilizing source or flow routing techniques. A storing mode requires that each device participating in routing maintains a routing table of downward routes. This requires the devices to have relatively large memory capabilities. In source routing, routing information is attached each transmitted packet. This reduces the payload of the packets.